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Saturday, September 13, 2014

Joyo/Wave-X PXL-8 Quick Review

Joyo PXL8 is a programmable eight channel true bypass looper with 8 memory banks and 4 presets (A,B,C,D) per bank. It allows you to save different presets (pedal combinations) and easily switch between them. My unit is branded "Wave-X" but it's in fact exactly the same unit as the Joyo PXL8.

I paid 99€ for this one and I feel that it was a real bargain. Eight loops is more than enough for me, the overall build quality is good and the PXL8 seems sturdy enough for live use.

My only complaint is that the footswitches are pretty noisy (or 'clicky') and I would have preferred soft-touch switches on this one. I can't really say anything about the reliability yet. I just haven't used the PXL8 long enough to really know.. But it seems like a nice solid unit. If something unexpected happens I will let you know!-- Update: 18.12.2014 --
It's been few months and I have used the PXL8 pretty intensely: recording sessions, jam sessions and plenty of live looping practice sessions. I've been pretty surprised how much faster and easier switching is with this thing. Using presets makes a huge difference and now my rig feels more streamlined. Wow, I really dig this thing!

How to program the Joyo/Wave-X PXL8:

Choose the bank and preset you want to edit and press "edit".

The screen shows "L". This means that you can now use the preset buttons (A,B,C,D) to switch loops 1-4 on/off.

Press "bank-" (the screen shows "H") and use the preset buttons to edit loops 5-8 on/off.

You can use the "bank-" button to navigate between editing loops 1-4 (L) or 5-8 (H).

The signal chain is: input -> loop 1 -> loop 2 -> loop 3 etc. You can obviously program any pedal combination but you can't switch the pedal order. Example: if you put a distortion pedal to loop 1, it will always be the first pedal in the chain when loop 1 is activated.